Neighbourhood Watch

few times, dragging her index finger over the spines of the books that are sticking out. She likes the sound. A gentle sound, like a caress. She stops finally at the Rs.
R, as in Russia.
She’s looked through all the books on Russia. More than once, even. This time, she chooses the big red book. The pictures are in colour, and there is Russian vocabulary at the end. She already knows a few words. Snieg means snow, oblako means clouds, zima means winter, louna means …
The second bell rings. Time for class.
Roxane hugs the red book to her chest and heads to the counter.
Ms. Bilodeau records the book. Stamps the card. ‘ Two weeks,’ she says.
Roxane’s eyes skim the yellowed pages of the romance novel, poorly hidden behind the dictionary. To each her own journey. Roxane puts the book in her bag and leaves.
‘Hey, dumdum, you’re on the wrong floor!’
Laughter.
The library is on the floor for regular classes. They know how to read. Roxane goes back down to her class, one floor down. To sixth grade for mental cases.
* * *
Today they’re making a nativity scene out of modelling clay.
Kevin hands out images of Jesus’s family, with the sheep, the grey donkey, and the rest of the gang.
On her desk, Mélissa draws Mary from the pile. She is dressed all in white. Her hands are long and folded over each other.
‘I want to do her.’
‘Me too.’
Mélissa and Roxane root through the jars of modelling clay.
‘There’s no white.’
‘Fuck. There’s no white.’
‘Miss? There’s no white for the Blessed Virgin!’
‘Then choose another colour, girls.’
They choose red. The modelling clay smells like fruit punch.
Roxane makes a head. Mélissa a body.
‘She needs boobs.’
‘Yeah, big boobs!’
Each girl rolls a ball in the palm of her hand. Mélissa’s ball is bigger than Roxane’s, so Roxane adds a little modelling clay till Mary’s boobs are even. Mélissa sticks them above the stomach and adds a lemon nipple to each one.
Roxane makes a yellow veil, while Mélissa fashions a long butt crack. There. The girls assess their work. It’s like a mini-snowwoman with big fruit-punch boobs and lemon nipples.
The girls want to eat Mary because she smells so good. Mélissa bites off her head. Surprised, Roxane starts laughing and bites off her legs. Marie is legless and decapitated: the girls are doubled over laughing. Their teeth full of modelling clay, they are sent out into the hall.
* * *
Louise gets up and sits in front of the TV. Women are cooking. A meat dish, something with apricots. In her bathrobe, Louise rolls cigarettes one after the other while they roll out pie crust, talking about the resurgence of tourism in Cuba. Eyes staring into space, fingers on the roller. Goddamn headache. She takes a swig of Coke.
‘Stuff the apricots in the holes.’
She lights a cigarette.
Louise, alone and small in the dirty white living room. Her feet in old Fred Caillou slippers. She sniffs.
‘Then mince the garlic.’
10:20. Recess. Louise thinks of Roxane. She must be playing outside. With her friends. Maybe. Outside with her friends.
Louise stubs out her cigarette, pulls up the covers, and curls up on the sofa in a little ball. For a moment, she tries to remember her daughter’s laugh. The way it erupts. A laugh all her own.
‘Put the meat pie in the oven at 350° and … ’ Shut up. She turns off the TV.
Closes her eyes. She falls asleep, her hands on her head.
* * *
Kathy and Kelly.
A body rolled up in fabric underneath winter.
‘I’d almost like to be a tourtière!’
A raspy voice, amused, hiding under thick layers of clothes.
A square of cardboard set in front of a pawnshop. In the window, presiding over the other objects for sale, a display of televisions is precariously balanced. All the screens show a tourtière baking in the oven.
‘Hey, Kelly. D’you get it? I’d almost like to be a tourtière! Check it out, it looks nice and toasty!’
On the street corner, Kelly watches the cars like a cat on the prowl, squeegee in hand and claws extended.
Around Kathy, the dogs doze, frozen. Kathy shakes the cold, empty beer mug; not one penny this morning. And yet normally when it’s cold …
She looks up at the tourtières in the pawnshop window. Forgets where she is, can almost smell the cinnamon coming from the TVS, the crust darkened by the browned butter, the little squares of wet potatoes and ground meat still a little pink.
Kelly joins Kathy on the cardboard square, the two forms become one; the dogs slip under the covers with them. Kathy and Kelly curl up in each other’s arms, suddenly richer than the rich.
From the other side of the street, all that can be seen is a pile of fabric in front of Madame Taillefer’s fifteen pink kitchens. On the ground, an empty metal mug.
* * *
Outside, plump snowflakes are falling. Roxane is sitting at the back of the class, looking out the window. The teacher is dealing with an outburst at the front. The kid is on the floor, and he’s yelling, scrambling in every direction.‘Calm down, Kevin, calm down.’ The teacher tries to restrain him. It’s been happening a lot since his mother left. The social worker should show up any minute now for a time out, then things will get back to normal, as if nothing ever happened. A time out is a technique they learn at social worker school. It’s like a wrestling hold for children. With arms and feet pinned, there’s just the yelling to deal with, but when the kid can’t move, he quiets down on his own.
Roxane watches the snow falling. The snowflakes look soft, but really, they’re cold. Lots of things are like that, she thinks.
Whenever something sort of serious happens, Roxane looks outside. If it goes on too long, she leaves for Russia.
She opens the big red book on her desk. Round castles that look like macarons. They’re so beautiful they don’t look real. She reads: ‘The Krem-lin.’ The sun hangs overhead, bits